


the rest will follow

by artenon



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Gen, Gen or Pre-Slash, Good Peter Hale, M/M, Missing Scene, Season/Series 06
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-18
Updated: 2020-07-18
Packaged: 2021-03-04 18:48:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,570
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25351141
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/artenon/pseuds/artenon
Summary: “Oh, fuck you,” Stiles huffs. “Look, I wanted to say thank you. For helping my friends, and for helping me. I know you didn’t do it for me, but I just. I wanted to thank you anyway. So. Thanks.”Peter hums. “While I always approve of being shown my due appreciation, I think you’re operating under some misapprehensions. I didn’t go out of my way to help your little friends.”“Wh… You are… so full of shit.” Stiles shakes his head, amazed. “Come on, I don’t really want to have this conversation in your doorway. Are you gonna let me in?”--After the Wild Hunt is dealt with, Stiles finds Peter.
Relationships: Peter Hale/Stiles Stilinski
Comments: 31
Kudos: 428





	the rest will follow

**Author's Note:**

> really, REALLY didn't think i'd ever be writing teen wolf fic again but here we are! (please don't read my fics from 2012 lmao)
> 
> teen wolf really gave us a whole episode of stiles and peter working together and then never had them interact again, huh? it's fine, i'll write the follow-up i want to see in the world. (i mean, i'm sure someone else has written this missing scene already, but i dropped the show after s3 and just recently watched the rest, so i'm late to the party)
> 
> thank you to [ailurea](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ailurea) and [blacktreecle](https://archiveofourown.org/users/blacktreecle) for the beta!

One minute Stiles is in the school hallway, clutching his dad by the arm with one hand and Lydia with the other, as the ground shakes and thunder rumbles. The next minute he’s home, in his room, at his desk. His browser is open to Google on his laptop and his fingers are poised over the keyboard like he’s about to type something.

Stiles blinks. Frowns.

He checks the date, and it’s almost the end of April. He remembers it was January when the Ghost Riders took him, so that checks out with what Scott said, although he still can’t believe he was gone for three months. He knew time worked differently in the Wild Hunt, but still. That’s three months that he missed school, that he didn’t spend with his friends, that he wasn’t home looking out for his dad, making sure he ate less grease and more vegetables.

Three months he was gone, except—except Stiles can feel it, hazy memories clamoring in his head, vague snapshots of the past three months passing quietly, uneventfully.

It’s the work of the Wild Hunt, he knows, and he digs his nails into his palm, pushes through the false memories like cobwebs. Because he was taken. That _happened_.

Stiles grabs his phone and calls Lydia. She picks up at the first ring.

“Where are you?” he asks.

“Home,” Lydia says. “Where are you?”

“Also home.” He bites his lip, then blurts, “That happened, right? The Wild Hunt, everything, I didn’t—”

He can’t take another nightmare, another horror only he is privy to. He just can’t. It’s too fucking heavy.

But then Lydia says, “It happened,” and Stiles breathes out in dizzy relief. “You were taken, I was there. You were erased. But we got you back. It was real. It was all real.”

Her voice dips into a whisper, like she’s reassuring herself as much as Stiles, and he remembers that of course Lydia also knows what it feels like to have a shaky grasp on reality, probably even more so than Stiles does.

“Yeah,” he breathes. “It happened. Okay. Okay, I’m gonna… Are you okay? Want me to come over?”

“I’m okay,” Lydia says. “We should check in on the others.”

“Yep, that was next on my list.”

They hash out who’ll reach out to who, agreeing to text each other updates. Thirty minutes later, Stiles slumps back in his chair with a sigh. He feels a lot better. Everyone’s okay. It seems like when Beacon Hills and the Wild Hunt unmerged, everyone was thrown to wherever they might expect to be on a typical Saturday afternoon, any damage swept away as if it had never happened. The exception is Corey, who’d been used to bridge the worlds, and Mason, who’d been with him, breaking the connection. Corey’s hurt, but he’s in good hands with Scott’s mom taking care of him.

Besides Corey, everything is just… normal. Everyone’s slotted back into life in Beacon Hills, false memories of the last few months overlaying the bizarre and unacceptable truth. It’s only the supernaturally-inclined, and the ones who were almost left behind, who can see the truth through the fog.

Or maybe they’re the only ones who want to.

That’s fine, though. It’s fine if the rest of Beacon Hills doesn’t remember, because Stiles’s friends do, and that’s really all that matters, because it means he’s not in it alone.

He’s—

Stiles jolts upright, nearly dropping his phone in his scramble to unlock it and dial Scott.

He’s not alone, he was never really alone. But someone else might be.

The line clicks, and Stiles barrels over Scott’s greeting. “Did Peter make it out okay?”

“Peter?” Scott says, baffled, and Stiles’s stomach sinks.

So that was how it ended? With Peter, burning and dying alone, trying to get to a daughter who didn’t accept him, trying to protect the last fucking thing he had, and Stiles just let him go to his death, didn’t stop him and convince him they could find another way, because he was so desperate that Peter might make it out and find a way to get Stiles out, too. But he didn’t make it out, and now here Stiles is, left behind as the only one to remember Peter ever existed. What the hell is he supposed to do with that?

And then Scott says, “Since when have you cared about Peter?”

Stiles pulls his phone away from his ear and gapes at it in offense. He shouts, “You asshole, I think I just went through the five stages of grief!”

“What are you talking about?” Scott says, voice coming through muffled.

“Never mind.” Stiles brings the phone back to his ear. “He’s okay, though?”

He doesn’t say anything else, doesn’t know how to explain. Because Scott’s right, Stiles has never really given a shit about Peter before. So how is he supposed to explain the bone-deep relief he felt to find him in the Wild Hunt, to have someone respond to him with snark instead of hazy confusion and dead-eyed stares? To have someone who _knew_ him, especially after those terrifying moments before he’d been taken, when even his dad hadn’t recognized him anymore.

Peter had felt like a lifeline.

Stiles wonders how quickly he would have lost himself if not for Peter, how quickly he would have become another zombie on the benches, waiting for a train to take him nowhere. Peter had needed Stiles to remind him of reality, and Stiles can’t help but wonder if it was also thanks to Peter that he had been able to keep his own wits about him all the way to the end.

“He’s okay,” Scott says, still sounding confused. His voice steadies as he continues, “He was in pretty bad shape after coming through the rift, but my mom did something to help him heal faster. He actually helped us fight the Ghost Riders. Oh, and he had the keys to your Jeep when we found him.”

Stiles has to bite down a smile at that. He knew Peter was all bark, but it’s nice to have it confirmed. “Do you know where he is now?”

“No, maybe Malia does?”

“Yeah, maybe. I’ll ask her. Thanks, Scott.”

He doesn’t, in fact, ask Malia. The thing is, no one ever really knows where Peter is; if you want him, you just have to text him and hope he shows up (promising him something in return usually helps). However, Stiles is nothing if not resourceful, and he figured out where Peter lives ages ago. If he hasn’t skipped town—and Stiles doubts he has, not at this point—then his apartment is probably his best bet.

At least the Wild Hunt was nice enough to drop Stiles’s Jeep off in front of his house.

* * *

Peter keeps the door to his apartment mostly closed, blocking Stiles’s view inside with his body. He narrows his eyes at Stiles. “How do you know where I live?”

“Dude,” Stiles says, gesturing at himself. “It’s me. I have my ways.”

“Fine,” Peter says. “Then what are you doing here?”

“Checking in on you?” Stiles says.

“Is that a question or a statement?”

“Oh, fuck you,” Stiles huffs. “Look, I wanted to say thank you. For helping my friends, and for helping me. I know you didn’t do it for me, but I just. I wanted to thank you anyway. So. Thanks.”

Peter hums. “While I always approve of being shown my due appreciation, I think you’re operating under some misapprehensions. I didn’t go out of my way to help your little friends.”

“Wh… You are… so full of shit.” Stiles shakes his head, amazed. “Come on, I don’t really want to have this conversation in your doorway. Are you gonna let me in?”

Peter relents with a sigh, stepping back and pulling the door further open so Stiles can step inside. Stiles looks around—he’s curious, okay? The place looks like it’s been pulled straight out of an IKEA room display, all nice coordinated furniture and accent pieces and zero evidence that the place is actually lived in. There’s not so much as a ring stain on the coffee table. Huh.

Filing the new information away, Stiles follows Peter as he stalks toward the kitchen.

“I know the score, okay. You’ve been back for a few weeks at least, so if you wanted to run, you’d already be gone. Scott told me you had my keys, and that you helped fight.”

Peter pours himself a glass of red wine. Last Stiles checked, werewolves couldn’t get drunk, so there’s either something special about this drink, or Peter’s just a pretentious asshole. Stiles is willing to bet on the latter. Peter doesn’t offer Stiles any, which is fine because Stiles is eighteen and doesn’t want any of Peter’s stupid werewolf(?) wine anyway.

Peter studies his glass and takes a sip. “If I’d run, the Wild Hunt would’ve followed me anyway. Don’t read too much into it. I was protecting myself.”

“No, you almost burned to death,” Stiles says. “Again. And I know you wouldn’t have done that if you hadn’t been desperate to get out as soon as possible.”

Because it was almost certainly suicide, and they both knew it. The way Peter kept looking back, back at Stiles, like he was afraid Stiles’s might be the last face he ever saw, was enough to make him want to call out at Peter to stop, to jump off before it was too late, if only his breath hadn’t stuck in his throat until the last of the Riders disappeared through the rift.

Stiles swallows. “If it was only your life on the line, you would’ve waited until we found another way. Something less risky. But you couldn’t wait, could you? Not when you realized how much danger everyone was in. Fine, you don’t care about us.” He makes a sort of all-encompassing gesture with his hand and watches the way Peter’s jaw twitches. “But why is it so hard for you to admit that you care about her?”

To admit that while Peter didn’t have a pack to save, he could still save his daughter’s. That maybe he would give anything for that.

Peter is quiet for several seconds. Finally he says, “Are you done?”

“Yeah,” Stiles says, after a beat. “Yeah, I guess I am.”

He stares at Peter in silence for another moment before he turns, and of course that’s when Peter, the contrary bastard, catches Stiles’s arm. “It was for you, too.”

“What?”

“You said I didn’t do it for you. Well, I did. I like you, Stiles; I’ve always said so. And a world where no one knew you would have been… an unexciting one to go back to.”

Stiles has to fight down his smile. Like, really hard. He mostly fails. “Aww, really?”

“Stiles.” Peter’s hand slides down to Stiles’s wrist and tightens.

And Stiles sobers, because he knows what Peter’s saying.

It’s not just that Peter likes him because he thinks he’s clever, or interesting. Somehow, over the past couple of years, Stiles has become someone that Peter cares about. How much he cares, exactly, Stiles isn’t sure, but that he cares at all is significant. After being made to forget his daughter, after losing almost his entire family, after feeling abandoned by what little he had left—after all that, somehow, out of everyone, Peter had chosen Stiles to care about.

Stiles feels like he’s been entrusted with something way too precious for his spastic self to handle. But he has it, whether or not he deserves it, and he wants to hold it close and careful.

“You know you can be a part of the pack,” Stiles says slowly. “Scott would let you.”

“I don’t think I’m ready.” Peter’s voice is quiet, and he almost looks surprised after, like he didn’t mean to say it out loud.

Stiles’s heart clenches. He’s known this—and he hates himself in this moment, that he’s never cared enough to really think about it before—but Peter really has had no one for so long. And that’s just… not okay.

“Well,” he says. “If I can ever… I dunno, I know I’m not much, but if you ever need me for some reason, or, or want my help with anything—you can call me, okay?”

Start with me, he thinks, and maybe the rest will follow.

“Okay,” Peter says, still quiet.

Stiles flicks his eyes down. Peter still has one hand around Stiles’s wrist. The other trembles around his half-empty wine glass. Stiles gently pries the glass from his fingers and moves to set it on the kitchen table.

“Coaster,” Peter says.

Stiles snorts. “It’s not like it’s gonna leave a stain.”

“Stiles,” Peter says, like a warning. He plucks a coaster from the stand at the edge of the table and lays it down. “Put it on the coaster.”

“O _kay_ , you weirdo.” Stiles puts it on the coaster. And then he looks back at Peter. Peter looks steadily back at him. Guarded, but there’s fondness there, too.

Stiles takes a step towards Peter, and then another when Peter doesn’t react. They’re only inches apart now, and Peter just keeps _looking_ at him, and Stiles thinks, _fuck it_ , and tilts forward and rubs his cheek against Peter’s.

Finally Peter reacts. He shudders and exhales, breath hot on Stiles’s ear. He rubs back—Stiles has to pretend that the scratch of his stubble isn’t as pleasant as it is—then noses his cheek, down to the base of his ear, and breathes in.

Stiles lets Peter scent him. He’s seen the tactility between his pack members. He knows it’s affection, knows it’s pack bonding. The others don’t do it with Stiles so much—maybe he doesn’t smell as good as wolf or coyote, or they think he’ll find it weird since he’s human, never mind that Stiles is tactile as fuck—but Derek used to rub his cheek against Stiles’s sometimes, when things were rough with the Alpha pack, just quietly taking comfort, and Stiles was happy to provide.

He wonders how long it’s been for Peter since he’s been able to do this with anyone. Maybe not since Derek left. Maybe not since before that, even.

Stiles brings a hand up, nestles it in Peter’s hair, and Peter honest-to-god whines, and burrows his face in Stiles’s neck.

“Yeah,” Stiles says, feeling unbearably tender. “You’re okay. You’ve got me now.”

“Who would ever come for me?” Peter murmurs.

The non-sequitur throws Stiles, and it takes a moment to recognize the words as his own. He doesn’t think about half the shit he says, much less remember it. But he remembers now, saying it, wanting it to hurt. He hadn’t realized it would stick. Shame curdles in him, and he drops his hand from Peter’s hair and pulls back.

“I’m sorry,” Stiles says as Peter blinks his eyes slowly open. There’s no recrimination in his soft blue gaze. Stiles thinks there should be; it’s not like Peter hasn’t been known to hold grudges. “That was a dick thing to say.”

“But not untrue,” Peter says.

“Not anymore,” Stiles says fiercely. “I mean it, okay? If you need me, I’ll be there. Do you believe that?”

Peter tilts his head and regards Stiles with a small smile. “Strangely enough,” he says, “I do.”

**Author's Note:**

> i love that there's a canonical tag for "Good Peter Hale" btw. he deserves it
> 
> thanks for reading! find me on [tumblr](https://qorktrees.tumblr.com/) / [twitter](https://twitter.com/qorktree)


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